If the essence of almost all spiritual practices can be reduced to one word, then this word will be "awareness". Awareness is the very thing for which almost all spiritual practices, techniques, meditations that exist in the world were created. Awareness is an internal state of a person, in which he is more alert, lively, sensitive and peaceful.
To better understand what awareness is, you need to understand what is its opposite. The opposite of awareness is the state in which most modern people live most of the time, and this state can be called a waking dream.
Most people sleep on the move, but not in the sense that they are sleepy, want to sleep, but in the sense that they really do not see anything, do not hear or feel either around them or inside themselves. They live almost entirely on autopilot, like the walking dead.
Even as a child, I noticed such a thing - if you listen to your favorite song inattentively, while thinking about something of your own, then such listening to music does not bring any effect, pleasure. You seem to miss everything. When I first began to notice this, it seemed to me a little unusual, because in any case, our ears always perceive the sounds of everything that happens around us and then, in theory, the music that we like should create the desired effect, cheer us up, simply because our ears hear her.
Now I know for sure that we cannot enjoy music if we do not consciously focus at least part of our attention on it. And this applies not only to music, but in general to everything in life. In the same way, a beautiful picture will not make any impression on us, even if it will be right in front of our eyes for a long time, if we do not look at it carefully, despite the fact that our eyes will perceive in any case. see this picture.
I think every person has experienced a similar effect. So, for example, having come to nature in a very beautiful place with beautiful landscapes, you can hardly notice any beauty if you are distracted by something, for example, busy with your thoughts.
So it turns out that people have eyes, ears and everything else, but life passes them by as if they are blind, deaf and almost do not feel anything. This is certainly an exaggeration and each person, to a greater or lesser extent, feels something good in his life, but there is such a thing as the degree of perception. And usually people have an extremely superficial, shallow perception of life, which, accordingly, makes their life boring and uninteresting.
Many people recall their childhood with nostalgia, say that then they felt good. And if you ask these nostalgic people what exactly was so good in childhood, which is not now, then those people who are not entirely reasonable will simply say that in childhood there is no such responsibility, obligations, there are practically no problems that they have now. Those who are wiser will say that in childhood the world is perceived differently and life is more interesting. And this is the only correct answer. The point is in the perception itself, and not at all that in childhood people are not burdened with anything.
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The fact is that in childhood people are more conscious. Being aware means participating with your consciousness in what you do and what you perceive. In other words, it means being present in what you do, see, hear, feel.
A person can perform a thousand tasks in a day, but at the same time he is extremely weak to be present in them. He can respond with standard phrases, perform the same body movements, and everything in his life will be repeated from day to day according to a routine pattern, both outside and inside himself.
At the same time, the person himself is either in some incomprehensible, not really noticed even by himself thoughts, dreams, fears, fantasies, or in general in some kind of gray prostration, reminiscent of deep oblivion.
Usually, people disagree with the fact that they hardly see, hear or feel the real world and, by and large, are not able to see even the cup on the table in front of them. A person perceives everything as if through a gray veil, a certain background, the noise of conflicting thoughts, emotions, feelings, moods. He does not see reality directly, directly.
The consciousness of an ordinary person is infected with a thousand viruses that swarm like worms inside him. And what is interesting is the desires and motivations of all these viruses, worms, a person perceives as his own. And to prove to a person that he has long been enslaved is almost impossible, because the very first thought that arises in his head in response to such a statement will be like - this guy is clearly not himself, because I know for sure that everything is fine with me … I am my own boss and always act according to my own desires and motives. And this thought is the result of the operation of the first protective system that parasites install in a person, so that no one even takes seriously the statements that people do not belong to themselves, but are in the factory of pain that they generate every day from themselves and contribute to its release in other creatures.